Quite some time ago on Aridni I wrote about a dilemma I had in getting a project done.  I didn’t have the technical skill to actually write the software myself and I did not have the time to learn it adequately enough.

Now that I am actively trying to restrict the number of projects I’m working on, I wanted to get these ideas out of my head.  They are not quite as powerful as they were when the ideas were born, but they might be of interest to someone out there.  If you decide you want to take on one of the projects, great!  Go for it.  I’ll even help you with getting hosting.

The three projects are right after the break.  They are ‘Hivemind Snapshot Project‘, ‘Articles of Organization and Operating Agreement Generator‘, and ‘Auto-task generation… thing‘

Hopefully you will find at least one of them useful!

Hivemind Snapshot Project – This project revolves around our beliefs and ideas.  Everyone has beliefs and they *KNOW* absolute truths.  Often times these truths are in opposition to those of other people.  Over time these ideas about the world and it’s workings change.  This project would take data and track it over time.
Just a little over five hundred years ago everyone knew the world was flat.  It was an absolute truth.  Although some explorers, astronomers, and philosophers the truth was different.  Perhaps they didn’t know exactly what was going on, but they knew it was different.

What if somebody came along with a website where people could log on and put in their truths, beliefs, and ideas?  You could have some sort of structure where users could write and publish an article.  Other users would be able to log on and mark which statements on which they agree and which they disagree.

One way to do it would be to ask a specific question every day/week where people answer in essay format.  They have a set amount of time to submit their answer.  After a bunch of essays are sent in you would drill down and pull out the specific simplified statements and do a poll on them. ie… “The Earth is the center of the universe.  True/False/Neither/don’t know”

You could group like minded individuals and identify thought leaders.  From there a user would be able to identify users with different belief structures and follow their activity.

One question I’ve gotten is what about the lack of general sciences available for the common person.  It is true that a lot of the scientific questions being asked right now are highly specialized with phd toting scientists working on them.  If they post something that is true, it doesn’t mean that it is the accepted truth.  Over the long run the experts answer on the topic would most likely become more widely accepted as people learn about it.  Adding qualifications to the users as well allows you to determine where their core expertise lies.

Until the empirical truth arrives you can’t be certain who is actually correct.  For some topics, the truth may never be actually known, but we can observe the changing of minds and take a snapshot of how people view the world.  Over a period of a number of years or some cases months you could see how our perceptions of the world are changing.

Sort of a rather longterm scope on this project, but it could be really interesting.

Articles of Organization and Operating Agreement Generator – This project would help people to construct the documentation for starting their own business.  The idea being that users would be able to cut the expensive costs of having a lawyer draft the documents without getting a pre-made cookie-cutter document that doesn’t apply to your business.

A user would start out by entering the basic information of your new company (Company name, Address, phone, industry, entity type).  This information will be used to create the simple Articles of Organization your business would need to file with the state.

Next the software would help out with your Operating Agreement.  Generally speaking they are used in LLCs and LLPs and sometimes partnerships as well.  This document states how the business will be run.  How are the different interests in the company split up?  What are the voting privileges?  How will profits and losses be divided up?  How is the thing going to be managed?  What happens if somebody wants to buy in?  What if somebody wants to sell their interest in the company?  What happens in the event of illness that prevents someone from working?

There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed for your company, and the Operating Agreement is exactly the place to do it.  This is an internal document for your members, so naturally they will naturally receive a copy.  When opening up a bank account, they will probably want a copy of your operating agreement.  Some businesses extending you credit might want to look at it or take a copy.

A user would be able to go through different sections and select exactly which items they want in their document.  If they chose to add membership information first, they would be taken to a page with 3-4 pre-written segments and a blank text-box.  Choosing one of the segments would bring it over to the text-box with the users company data inserted where relevant.  The user would then be allowed to customize the text further.  When complete just  save the section and move to the next.

After the user gets through the different issues that are commonly addressed, they would be given the option to add their own sections for any special needs they would have.  When everything is complete and the user is happy, the document is generated as a .pdf file and given to the customer.

I imagine you could charge somewhere between $25 and $50 for this service and do well.  Some of the very cookie cutter documents are in this range and offer no personalization.  Having a lawyer draft the documents for you would easily cost hundreds of dollars.

Companies such as LegalZoom have began simplifying the process online, although I am under the impression that the costs are still high.  So if you start, you will have some competition already!  With this you would most likely need to set up an affiliate program or pay for traffic to get customers.  If you are ambitious enough, then go for it!

Auto-task generation… thing – This project is all about getting things done.  The basic idea is a program that emails out automatically generated tasks and tracks if you do them or not.

I mostly want this one just so I can use it myself!  I have multiple websites that I own or help people with.  Each one needs many of the same things done to it.  It could be anything from coding and design to contacting advertisers, updating the content, and checking stats.  Just quick little tasks that will take between 30 seconds and 10 minutes.

The program would take two lists and randomly combine a piece from each one each day.  We would have a list of websites and a list of tasks, and every day an email would show up telling us the days project.  If an email read, ‘Set the peralinks for project quicksilver’ I would be off to do that.  The email could also give me a link for when the task was complete.  I would mark it as complete and leave a comment if needed.

The next day a new project would be automatically assigned and emailed out.  Or if I was feeling particularly productive I could go to the site and get a new task to work on right then.

The program would allow me to keep track of my projects and what needs to be done on them.  I’m sure someone else would find it useful as well!

There is quite a bit more that you could do with this project as well.  Scripts could be set up to determine if what it is emailing out is a valid task, or to verify that it was done.  You could track the response time between sending the email and having the task complete to determine which tasks take longer.  Perhaps multiple users per project so different tasks could be sent out, then you could really get things done.

Just writing about these different projects is getting me excited about them!  I think I’ll have to go back and read my post about not taking on to many projects.  You are welcome to take/borrow/steal these ideas if you want, and hopefuly make something out of them.  Let me know what you do with them.